Focus on one thing, do not be distracted by anything else. Oh look tacos!

I don't use clickbait titles very often, but this was one, because I want to talk to people who think that nine out of ten things that the collective known as Donald Trump, his white house staff, and the Republicans in Congress do is a distraction from ... whatever.

Yes, distractions can happen, but most of what happens is not a distraction. The Trump administration is incapable of that much forethought and planning. When Trump throws trans people under the bus, telling that is a distraction is YOU throwing trans people under the bus. Here are some examples of the distraction meme playing out on Twitter:

This theme plays out in other ways as well. I recently wrote a Facebook post bout the 2020 election. Something like 9 out of 10 commenters told me to stop talking bout 2020, and to focus on 2018. Some told me to focus on other things.

I've got news for you. Every week I carry out a number of focused acts related to the climate change crisis. Everything else is a distraction.

I also carry out an act or two to work towards replacing my Republican representative in Congress because he is vulnerable, we can switch this seat, and that may be part of changing Congress from Red to Blue. Everything else is a distraction.

I frequently expend effort helping in the campaign for who I think should be the next Governor of my state. My fellow staters tend to switch parties every two terms, and we've had a Democrat in office for what will be 8 years. I am focused like a laser beam on making sure my bone-headed compatriots don't blindly put a Republican in office in 2018, and I've got my candidate. Everything else is a distraction.

My state house representative is a seriously red tea-bagger. I've not done much about that yet, I just moved to her district. But I've done a couple of things and I'll do more. I'll do what I can to make sure she is replaced by someone excellent, a Democrat, and I already know who it is. Everything else is a distraction.

Today, I started to process of encouraging someone in my school district to run for the board. I want to see more good people run for more offices. Everything else is a distraction.

Oh, and today, for dinner, I'm going to make tacos. Except they really aren't tacos, they are more like burritos. We must defend the burrito, which is not a taco and not a wrap. Everything else is a ...

Anyway, I'm not the only person who cringes when I see "No, that really important example of Trump and his Republican Minions taking away our rights and ruining the planet and garnering more and more wealth is just a distraction," or who hates it when an attempt at a conversation about politics gets shut down by well meaning and smart people because it wasn't what they were thinking about that day.

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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/890193981585444864
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I find it sad that the person who wrote the first tweet -- "Obi Wan Kenobi" -- used a fake Jefferson quote to support an otherwise valid point. Monticello dot org points out that it was written by Eyler Robert Coates' in his collection of Jefferson quotes.

It will be hard to avoid distractions simply because there are so many fires being set by the unscrupulous and amoral loons in the White House. I watched the speakers at the press conference this afternoon, first discussing Venezuela and what they want to do, then the question/answer period. The statements read by Trump's people seemed to be at the 3rd grade level. If the low level of integrity they've demonstrated doesn't concern people, the lower level of intelligence they show should. If neither does -- you're hopeless.

I ascribe to something more along the lines of TYT's orthodoxy on this stuff from the WH.

It's not a distraction. they're all just batshit. There's no mastr plan, just the wild disorganised screeching of a toxic environment with too many unbalanced and incompetent idiots who have no plan or consideration, only feelings and reactions to them.

Trump's tweets are not part of a master plan, they're the result of a moron with mental problems including a complete lack of self control.

And actions of the rest of the staff are either from an increasingly dominant crowd of similarly idiotic uncontrolled morons or the acts of notionally rational people given no basis on which to plan and therefore can only react to each incident as it turns up.

There's also the case of not taking our eyes off the ball at a global scale. As David Ignatius observed a few minutes ago on the Lawrence O'Donnell's Last Word, the Trump White House has systematically been working to dismantle the liberal democratic political structure of much of the international community. As an example, the latest example of the emasculation of liberal democratic values is the fact that Putin can kick out 750 US diplomats and there's not even a squeak of protest or other commentary from the man who is supposed to be the leader of the USA.

I've heard time and again commentators, both conservative and liberal, say that Trump is not really going to change the geopolitical milieu. How blind are they?! Trump has already profoundly tipped the international balance, and China and Russia are laughing as they gather up the reins of global leadership. And for the State's allies, all that we see is a once remarkable country strongly exhibiting the disturbing stages of advanced dementia and decline. The reputational damage is severe and comprehensive - the USA will carry this scarring for decades, and indeed possibly for centuries depending on how strongly the Eastern Hemisphere takes advantage of the evisceration of US American leadership.

This is the great fat medicine ball that too many in the States (and elsewhere) seem to be unable to see.

Is this a phenomenon related to the exaggerated preeminence in Western economies of business and the business class? Government is far more than just business (and in Australia, law, as is illustrated by the Aussie penchant for putting lawyers in parliament). Government requires skills in addition to running a company, and in many areas of governance skills are required that are antithetical to those useful in business. If the Trump disaster indicates anything in addition to the folly of putting a sociopathic, narcissistic individual into power, it's the danger of letting business (or any vested interest group) get too much of a grip on the reins of leadership.

Watch the ball. And if that ball resolves into two headlights that are growing larger, jump sideways has hard as you can...

"the liberal democratic political structure of much of the international community" includes that each country has the authority to expel whatever diplomats it chooses. Russia has set the number equal to the number of employees that they are having in the US.

If Trump were complaining about it, liberals like ODonnell would just attack him for that.

#9: "If Trump were complaining about it, liberals like ODonnell would just attack him for that."

So you have the power of prediction of what liberals would do? Is this a psychological projection of what right-wingers typical do, for instance like they did to Obama when he and the Congress at the time instituted what was pretty close to Romneycare? (And wasn't that originally conceived by the conservative Heritage Foundation?)

I'll predict that if Trump or the presently constituted GOP ever does anything intelligent and beneficial to Americans in general, liberal will be astounded.

The problem wasn't the messaging, IMO, or the D's acceptance of the term, but their lack of belief in just how racist voters actually were.

You see Obamacare was a black man's work and the ACA is what lets them have the heathcare provided for them.

Not everyone, but a lot. And when you hear a lot of other people saying it's crap but not giving the real reason you may move from fence sitting to agreement just to fit in.

The D's thought that since a black man had been voted in as president that there was no more racism apart from an outcast fringe. therefore there would not be a problem with Obamacare, since it would be named after THEIR president.

They just didn't think racism would make it easy to pretend it was different from ACA and bad.

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